Stop and …Cry?

Good morning! I hope the past few days has given you opportunity to love well and practice vulnerability in your relationships. It certainly has for me and I’ve gotta say, it’s tough to be real. Being real means people get to see things we would just like to keep hidden.

Jesus says “For there is nothing hidden which will not be revealed, nor has anything been kept secret but that it should come to light.” Mark 4:22 NKJV. So there it is, guys, the truth from the Man Himself. We might as well stop trying to hide our true selves because we will eventually be found out.

But the question I have is what about when we hide the truth from ourselves? There are times we don’t know we are hiding a part of ourselves until the Holy Spirit starts doing some probing and we start to see things and discover things about ourselves that we didn’t know. This very thing happened to me back in November when I watched the movie “Inside Out” by Disney. Boy! That should be required watching for anyone with emotions…so I really mean the whole world 🙂 It is a children’s movie but there are some deep truths that us adults need to hear! Myself included!

The truth that stuck out to me most is that is is CRITICAL that we allow for times of sadness. People run from sadness. They run to a bottle, a strip club, a chat room, TV, even helping others. People will find anything to avoid feeling sad. It doesn’t have to be what one would consider evil behavior. There are a lot of good Christian people who read their Bible or teach Sunday school to escape their hearts. Please hear me! There are many many many wonderful Sunday school teachers who do it because they love Jesus and people! I’m just sayin that we can use good works to escape truth and be deceived ourselves, because we think we are doing something good. Satan, the Enemy of our souls, wants us to think that. To think that God is more concerned with our good works than authenticity is just not true when we have impure motives for doing those works.

I spent years running from feeling sad. I didn’t realize it until watching that movie. I’ve struggled with depression and so I though I had the “sad” thing down pat. But that’s the funny thing about sadness, it can come from hidden places within ourselves, places that still need to take time to grieve. Solomon talks of that in Ecclesiastes when he says “There’s a time to mourn.” But who wants to do that? Who wants to invite pain and sadness when they could just go and shoot baskets or have coffee with a friend. In our busy schedules, who has time for that?

My challenge today, is that we can’t afford not to take time for that very thing. If we don’t, it could eat us alive. Studies are clear that unresolved grief and suppressed emotions can lead to all sorts of disease that wouldn’t have come otherwise. So instead of just exercising for our health, let’s take stock on any stuffed emotions that may be greatly impacting us now and into the future.

The movie clearly points out the vital truth that we can’t truly feel joy without sadness having a voice. Let’s embrace sadness today so that we can truly experience joy because as Nehemiah 8:10 says, “The JOY of the Lord is our strength!”